Plans to add storage to the 212MW Lincoln Gap wind farm in South Australia are underway, with Siemens/AES joint venture Fluence signed up to deliver a 10MW/10MWh battery based energy storage system, targeted for completion in May 2019.

Lincoln Gap project developer Nexif Energy said on Friday that it had signed an agreement with Fluence after a “rigorous evaluation process,” to deliver an energy storage system to “reliably integrate” the wind farm’s output to the National Electricity Market.

Lincoln Gap will be the third big battery in South Australia, after the so-called Tesla big battery at the Hornsdale wind farm, the Dalrymple North battery at the Wattle Point wind farm. Large scale battery storage is also planned for the Snowtown wind farm, along with a co-located solar farm, and for the Whyalla steelworks.

“Furthermore, the LGWF will be able to deliver critical flexibility – in the form of Frequency Control Ancillary Services (FCAS) – directly into the NEM.”

The deal – while just one among an increasing number of renewable plus battery storage projects in the development pipeline around Australia – is being heralded as one of the first such projects to secure non-subsidised financing.

“The addition of a battery will help to provide important grid stability services to the network and better integrate intermittent renewable energy into the grid.

“It will contribute to the orderly transition to clean energy in South Australia, and aligns with the South Australian Government’s goal of providing South Australian consumers with an electricity system that is affordable, reliable and secure.”

As we reported here, that battery is also unique, in that it is connected to a key junction in the network, and not located next to a wind and solar farm like Lincoln Gap, Hornsdale, and other batteries under development at Bungala, Wattle Point, Snowtown, and Kennedy.

The Lincoln Gap deal also coincides with the establishment of a Melbourne office, for Fluence, as a key new business base for the US company in the Asia Pacific region.